The Key to Believing
by peter'slittlelostgirl
Summary: Peter is driven back to London to return Wendy to Neverland. But years have passed, and Wendy's grown up and gone. Yet, in the house where the Darlings once lived is a girl much like Wendy, and Peter becomes convinced that she is. He takes the unbelieving girl back to Neverland, where the lines between reality and dreaming blur... Adventures await, whether she wants it to or not.


Even long after Wendy Darling and her brothers returned to London, Peter Pan still dreamed of her. Although it could have been months, or perhaps decades since the Darling children had left, many of the nights when Peter closed his bright eyes to rest, he would be dragged into vivid fantasies of the girl in the flowing nightdress. Usually, the dreams were jolly ones, where he and Wendy went on adventures together, soaring, their fingers entwined, through the Neverwood like two doves flying to their nest, whirling through the falling autumn leaves and the twinkling Neverland fairies. They hunted together and swam together and played together, fighting pirates and dancing with Indians until it was time to go back home.

They were truly wonderful dreams, which Peter woke from happily, locking each one away keeping them safe in his heart.

One night though, Peter's dreams turned dark, taking him to Wendy's nursery, to the window that was always left open. Only tonight, it was locked tighter than it had ever been before, dust covering the sills on the inside; Peter couldn't get in. No matter how hard he pulled and pushed, it was impenetrable.

In the nursery, it was dank, icy cold, and impossibly lonely. Nothing had changed, yet everything seemed sinister. The room was as Peter had always remembered it, but sand and dust and mud plastered the beds where the children had once slept; green-brown mould grew from the wide cracks in the floorboards; rats scurried in and out of the slowly rusting dollhouse. It took a moment for Peter to take it all in.

In the centre of the room sat a shivering girl, her nightgown muddy at the fraying hems, her arms hugging around her weak knees that she had pulled to her chest. Her once long hair now hung limply above her shoulders, uneven and jagged, as though heartlessly chopped off. She was sobbing uncontrollably, seemingly oblivious to the disarray around her. It was like she was used to it, like it had always been that way.

Peter's hand went out towards Wendy, but, of course, he could not reach her. Now, Peter had always got what he'd wanted in the past, and when he realised then that he was stuck outside the nursery, it made a murderous rage curdle his blood, and he furiously hammered at the window, shouting out Wendy's name until his throat burned. He stared at her, hoping she would see him, but she continued to cry, the way he had once done a long time ago, when he had lost his shadow in that very room. She couldn't hear him from what he could tell, so he screamed louder. She only cried more.

Then, as Peter slammed his torso into the rigid glass with as much effort as he could muster, a dim shadow fell over Wendy's weak form, and she finally looked up, albeit not at Peter. Fear and dread radiated from of her skin all the way to Peter as she scrambled away. Seeing her caused Peter to hold his breath and freeze, his hands pausing on the window with a feather light touch. Her face, though severely cut and torturously forlorn, was utterly beautiful, and always would be to Peter.

Then, echoing out into the barely lit nursery, a low voice, far more terrifying than anything Peter had ever heard, spoke to the girl.

"He isn't coming for you, Wendy."

Somewhere deep in Peter's tough bones, something wrenched with recognition. He had heard the malevolent voice before, though it had not filled his young ears for a time longer than he could count.

Hook.

Peter lurched forward, calling to Wendy louder than he thought he could ever call. But Wendy still couldn't hear him. Her eyes were focussed on the hook that glinted in the moonlight, deadly sharp and dripping with blood. Her blood. Peter become conscious then of the fact that it had been Hook who had sliced at her face. His wrath intensified.

"You will die alone, Wendy, always loving the boy who could not love you back." The captain moved forward, laying his hook under Wendy's chin, the pointed tip digging into her, almost breaking the skin. "He will forget you, and you will be nothing but a speck of dust on his shoulder." His words were crystal clear to Peter, though when he shouted at Wendy to tell her what she was hearing were lies, no one seemed to hear but the crows that circled above the London townhouse viciously.

Wendy's expression became agonised, and Peter grew frantic. His movements turned hysterical, arms and legs shaking with horror and eyes blurring as hot tears plummeted over his cheeks and down to splash on the ground far below his hovering frame. A chill rippled through him.

He would never get to her. She would believe Hook's words and hate him until the moment she died.

That thought sent his fist forward in a sudden explosion of ferocity. It punched straight through the glass, and for a second, his heart lifted. He would finally reach her.

Wendy started to turn her head, hearing the window smash. Her eyes began to light up with hope. Soon she would know he had come for her. Soon she would know just how much he cared.

Then Peter woke up, her name on his lips and his knuckles bloody. He could form only one thought in his mind.

_I have to find Wendy._


End file.
